Issues
Facing Missions Today 30: A City on a Hill; But Jack Fell Down and Broke
His Crown
Three news items regarding the Church and its
mission this month stood out as examples of churches giving up their position
of being a city on a hill for the nations. Each is a Jack or Jill
tumbling down the hill, leaving behind the water of life above in order to have
fellowship with the world below, giving up its witness. The path taken by
three churches caving to cultural pressures does not seem to be a lonely one,
however. I will simply report the
stories to the extent that I know about them and then juxtapose an alternative,
Biblical vision for the witness of God’s people to the world.
The first story comes out of San Francisco, a city
that shares some of the notoriety that was once the dishonor of ancient
Corinth. As we might imagine John would have
written to the church (cf. Rev. 2-3), ‘To the angel of the Church of San
Francisco, write, “Stand fast in the city of sexual permissiveness. I know that some of you have yielded to her
sins. Repent, I say. But to everyone who stands fast and does not
falter, I will give permission to eat of the tree of life.’
It is, then, no wonder that we hear a sad story
about a church in San Francisco this past week, a church caving in to the
culture, choosing to remove the stumbling block of righteousness that it might
have fellowship with the world. The Religion
News Service announced on 16 March that a ‘Prominent San Francisco evangelical
church drops celibacy requirement for LGBT members.’[1] Fred Harrell, Sr, the senior pastor of City
Church (of the Reformed Church in America) stated the church’s new position in
a letter: ‘We will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation and
demand lifelong celibacy as a precondition for joining’ (March 13). Apparently, walking in the ways of the Lord
is an example of discrimination. Harrell
further explained that the church’s new ethic was adopted for communal (not
Biblical) reasons. He wrote,
‘Imagine
feeling this from your family or religious community. If you stay, you must accept celibacy with no
hope that you too might one day enjoy the fullness of intellectual, spiritual,
emotional, psychological and physical companionship. If you pursue a lifelong partnership, you are
rejected. This is simply not working and people are being hurt. We must listen and respond.’
The article points out that City Church has
followed the logic of two other ‘Evangelical’ churches in removing the
requirement of celibacy for homosexual members—Grace Pointe Church in
Nashville, Tennessee and East Lake Community Church in Seattle, Washington. One
might also mention the same decision at World Vision last year, although the
organization reversed its decision a short time later. The Religion News Service article closes with
a quote from Laura Turner, City Church’s communication’s coordinator: ‘Telling
LGBT people they have to change before they can become Christians is leading to
depression, suicide and addiction and we won’t do that anymore.’ We have here two alleged reasons for these
decisions: exclusion undermines community, and calling sinners sinful can lead
to suicide.
Whatever one wishes to say about these arguments
(and they do beg for a response!), what is missing in the discussion, at least
as it is here presented, is any reference to Scripture. Therein lies the great mistake in designating
these churches ‘Evangelical’ at all. Of
course, a leopard might imagine itself a lion, but it is still a leopard. An essential part of any definition of
‘Evangelical’ is that theology and ethics are Biblical first and foremost. Careful scrutiny of the Scriptures, and then
setting them aside for more compelling concerns about community and psychology
does not qualify as Evangelical—that is, in fact, an exit from the Evangelical
movement. Not a few bizarre, even
heretical teachings can be found in the Evangelical movement (e.g., the
Prosperity ‘Gospel’), but what binds the lot together is that all believe that
they are following Scripture. There are
disagreements among Evangelicals over doctrine and, to a much lesser degree,
over ethics, but all make their arguments from the Scriptures. There have been attempts by all sorts to
explain away the Biblical passages addressing homosexuality, but the arguments
flare up for a minute and burn out just as quickly, only to be replaced by other
vain attempts to mute the Scriptures and the convictions of the Church for over
two thousand years. Undoubtedly, some
Evangelicals will be confused by all this—even convinced by it for a time—but
they will have to reckon soon enough with mistaken exegesis if the Bible is
truly their authority. With City Church,
however, we have a setting aside of Biblical authority in order to cater to the
pressures from a post-Christian culture.
A second story in the news this past week also had
to do with homosexuality. A majority of presbyteries
in the Presbyterian Church, USA—a denomination of just under 2 million in the
United States—voted to excise words from the Book of Common Order that had
previously defined marriage as only between a man and a woman.[2] The Book of Common Order will now permit
homosexual ‘marriage’ with the following, open-ended wording:
Marriage
is a gift God has given to all humankind for the wellbeing of the entire human family. Marriage involves a unique commitment between
two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for
the rest of their lives. The sacrificial
love that unites the couple sustains them as faithful and responsible members
of the church and the wider community.
In
civil law, marriage is a contract that recognizes the rights and obligations of
the married couple in society. In the
Reformed tradition, marriage is also a covenant in which God has an active
part, and which the community of faith publicly witnesses and acknowledges.
This is different from the City Church story because
the denomination has been on the decline for decades as Evangelicals and others
leave. Finally enough people upholding
Biblical truth have departed the denomination that those remaining can change theology
and ethics from the historic teachings of the Church. Like City Church, there is no mention of
Scripture. Whereas City Church is trying
to attract people from the culture by setting aside Biblical standards, the
PCUSA is already the culture. It is a chameleon of culture, a kind of religious
expression of the liberal American culture.
In doing this, the PCUSA is, of course, not alone. Nor is America alone among Western countries
with this cultural pressure. The PCUSA
now officially joins the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of America (‘Evangelical’ being a word for Lutherans, not having
anything to do with what everybody else means by the word!), and the Episcopal
Church—all declining denominations that have adopted the culture’s values and
jettisoned Biblical authority. They are
proud owners of the ruins of what once was a city shining on a hill.
A third story this month came on 6th March, when
the vicar of St. John’s, Waterloo in Southwark had the grand idea to hold a
joint service with Muslims. According to
the story reported by Madeleine Davies for Church Times, the vicar, Canon Giles
Goddard, concluded the service with an attempt to identify the God of Christians
with Allah. He said, ‘Allah, God, is
always with us and always around us, and is within us…. So let us celebrate our shared traditions by
giving thanks to the God that we love, Allah, Amen.' The Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd
Christopher Chessun, quickly investigated and corrected the breach of polity,
and Canon Goddard was led to apologize for allowing Muslim prayers in a
consecrated church.[3] One wonders if anyone thought the theology
might be in error as well.
Each of these headline stories this month
represents the increasing pressure of culture on the Church in the West to
conform to its values. Yet the Biblical
vision for God’s people is not conformity to but witness to the world. Isaiah, the 8th century prophet of Israel,
spoke oracles against the sinful nations and against sinful Israel for her
conformity to the sinful nations. His
vision for what God expected of his people was of a city on a hill to which the
nations streamed to learn the ways of God.
He says,
Isaiah 2:2-3 In days to come the
mountain of the LORD's house shall be established as the highest of the
mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to
it. 3 Many peoples shall come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God
of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his
paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the
LORD from Jerusalem.
Ethics is mission.
If we dilute God’s righteous requirements to attract those who will have
nothing of them, we may have community—even large churches—but we will not only
have turned off the lights on the hill and silenced God’s revelation of himself
through us to the world. We will also have tumbled down the hill to become one with the
world.
Let Evangelicals—all orthodox Christians—rather
say with Isaiah, ‘Come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!’ (Isaiah 2.5). Only then, as Jesus says, will we, his disciples,
be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and a city on a hill that
cannot be hid (Mt. 5.13-14).
[1]
See article by this title by Kimberly Winston.
Accessed online (20 March, 2015): http://www.religionnews.com/2015/03/16/san-francisco-evangelicals-drop-celibacy-requirement-lgbt-members/.
[2]
See Melody Smith, ‘Presbyterian Church (USA) approves marriage amendment,’
March 17, 2015. Accessed online (20
March, 2015): https://www.pcusa.org/news/2015/3/17/presbyterian-church-us-approves-marriage-amendment/.
[3]
Madeleine Davies, ‘Canon Goddard apologises for Muslim prayers in his church,’
in Church Times, 18 March 2015. Accessed online (20 March, 2015): http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/20-march/news/uk/canon-goddard-apologises-for-muslim-prayers-in-his-church.